Daniel Juncadella has said he feels “sorry” for the opening-lap error that left the #19 Genesis GMR-001 at the back of the field in the World Endurance Championship’s Barcelona 6 Hours.
Home hero Juncadella made a brilliant launch from third on the grid, passing Toyota’s Sebastien Buemi and fellow Genesis driver Andre Lotterer to take the lead under braking for Turn 1.
But with the track still wet and unpredictable following overnight rain, the Spaniard ran off the track at Turn 5 and slipped to 16th place, only ahead of the #35 Alpine which had been turned around in a start incident.
Two early safety car interventions allowed him to climb back inside the top 10 by the end of the opening hour, despite running wide on multiple occasions, but the Korean manufacturer ultimately lacked the pace to contend for points as the track began to dry.
Juncadella, Mathieu Jaminet and Paul-Loup Chatin eventually wound up 11th in the #19 Genesis, a lap down on the race-winning #8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid of Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley.
After the race, the 35-year-old took responsibility for his mistake and admitted he was disappointed to miss out on scoring his first points of the season.
“F***ed that one up,” he said. “Sorry to the team. Difficult race later on with a couple of setbacks but we move on.
“It’s a frustrating result for sure, there are a lot of areas we need to analyse but personally, just a bad day. I made a good start and was looking good for four corners and I just misjudged the grip and the braking point and went from first to last which was very annoying.
“We were really strong in the wet and I made my way back to P8 which was very nice, but when it dried out, we weren’t as competitive as we would have liked.
“There were some little setbacks during the race which made us drop back. Despite losing a lap, we nearly made the points, but it was not to be, unfortunately.”
Genesis had starred in Saturday’s qualifying at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with Mathys Jaubert scoring the brand’s first Hypercar pole in the #17 GMR-001. Jaminet qualified third in the sister car, underlining the team’s one-lap strength on the WEC’s first visit to Spain.
However, Genesis’ race unravelled within the opening hour as a series of events left both its Oreca-chassised entries outside of points contention.
Lotterer dropped from first to third on the opening lap and was then compromised by a technical issue understood to be related to traction control.
After having a wide moment of his own and dropping to 14th, the sportscar veteran earned a drive-through penalty for a full-course infringement, leaving the #17 Genesis he shared with Jaubert and Pipo Derani a lap down on the leaders.
Genesis’ chief engineer Justin Taylor admitted the Barcelona round showed the team has a “lot to learn” in Hypercar, describing the setback as part of the “learning process” for a new entrant.
“It was a character-building day for everyone, drivers, engineers and mechanics included,” he said.
“With the single lap pace that we showed yesterday, our expectations for the race were pretty high, but clearly, we still have a lot to learn.
“We had a few small technical issues that just took us too long to sort out and that cost us too much time in the end. It’s all part of the learning process and we need to look into these issues and make sure we come back better prepared at Monza.”
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